Smoke Kisses Sky - Session 4: Brewing Tensions and Journal Entries

At the end of the last session, the Father killed the Son in a duel to the death. Since then a couple days have passed as Matilda recovers, and the Mother has been giving the Father a cold shoulder. Which is impressive becouse she already has a very frigid disposition on a good day. Matilda overhears how the Mother speaks to the Glazier for advice on if she should prioritize her duties as a warrior or as a mother. The bandits at the Lily of the Water have silently started to form into two groups, around 10 of them are on the Mother's side while double that amount are with the Father. It's no surprise that she has less support, becouse the Father has always been the better chef of the two.

Meanwhile the collection of hunters that helped with taking down the Beast are starting to part ways. Rosemary is going to go upriver and over the mountains to the Great Wood where Moss is strongest. The poor unlucky woman does not want to be struck by lightning, so seeks the powers of Moss, becouse Glazier tells her that lightning is in the domain of Crystal. Bellum plans to get a safe distance away from Yelenin before the fighting starts while still operating in the Jabberwacky's marshes, since he's a local lad. Dame the Vivisector is going north to the Fallen City to slay dragons.

Matilda has the oppertunity to recruit one of them for a more permanant basis, and chooses the level headed and uncursed Bellum. He is willing to stick around despite the risk if Matilda has a good plan for ensuring that he's on the winning team, and Matilda comes up with the scheme of using her advanced knowledge of stew making to win over the bandits. The poacher is initially unsure but agrees to back her play. Matilda aligns herself with the Mother's camp through the comradery of the bandits she faught the Beast with, whose loyalty to the Son transformed to make the Father thier enemy. If the Father is taken out, Matilda has a chance to become the gang's new chef but she's going to have to deal with the Beast's slayer Scarlet and the Son's Wife, who are both skilled in the culinary arts. For Matilda to have a chance at the spot, she's going to need to collect reagants, that likely means hunting some dangerous magical beasts.

While politics are happening the background, she also decides to investigate the Sphinx of Black Quarts with a professional. The Glazier is able to find time in his busy schedule to venture to the previously explored cabin with the protection of the Apprentice and Matilda with her two companions. When they arrive, the craftsman-priest pays introduces himself politely to the unintrested oracle and looks at the statue. He translates the inscription to say “Swear on me, be judged and accept what you deserve” and explains that there is likely to be a specific phrase that is involved. By process of elimnation the answer must be in the cabin's final unexplored room, Distal's nest. However before getting to that, the old skeleton man admonishes Matilda and crew for not buring the bodies of Claricia and Inezch and directs them to correct thier error. During this process it's discovered that Inezch has wizard teeth, which are useful alchemical ingrediants that go unplundered, due to everyone's watchful gaze. Then the Glazier and Apprentice headed back to the villiage, becouse they have shit to do.

Meanwhile the party had to think about how to get inside Distal's nest without bothering the light senstive monster. The one time the oracle is known to leave that place is during the full moon, and after consulting the calander, it fortunately turned out that this very night it was the full moon. So the party just rested in the upstairs cabin until nightfall. During which time Matilda read Claricia's journal, learning more about how she died to her own poison, that her blood was cursed, how she tamed both Distal and Miette and her worries for both of them and her husband Inezch. 

Then when the full moon came, and the oracle wandered into the marsh, singing unharmoniously, the party snuck into his private chambers. The room consisted of chair, a couple chests, hanging paper stars and words written and carved on every surface. The phrase "Sphinx of Black Quartz Judge My Vow" was identified from common repetion, and the chests were opened with Inezch's key, where a crossbow for vampire hunting, silver bolts and several books were found. The books and bolts were looted and the party slept up in the cabin. That night Matilda saw a sphinx prowl into her dreams and give her a judging look that makes the Glazier's dissaproving tone look like approval.

In the morning she read Inezch's journal. In which she learned that Inezch became a divination wizard from vows to the Sphinx, that Distal stopped looking like him after Claricia tamed the oracle, and that Inezch was extermely paranoid about Claricia's safety. The session closes on Matilda pondering the mysteries presented before her and her next move.

Ease Of Running

This session was much easier to run then the last one, and I came away from it feeling way better. I think it's becouse there was a lot less uncertainty on if I was using the procedures correctly. The half consisted of me presenting information, and getting Alice to make choices and elaborating of what that entails. The second half was mostly exposition, with a focus toward answering the mystery of how to utilize the Sphinx of Black Quartz. 

Lunar Coincidence

I did not intend for Alice to arrive at the cabin at precisely on the day of the full moon. I quickly calculated how many days had passed in the campaign and it turned out to be two weeks. Which in the simplified calander I chose for this campaign, that meant that day had to either be the full moon or the new moon and I decided the former based on Feral Elf lore.

Kitsuragi Effect

A term I'm coining now. The Kitsuragi Effect is that when you give a PC a reasonable friend they are a lot less likely to do wierd shit due to the social pressure. Claricia's heart and Inezch's teeth have gone undefiled becouse I mentioned that npcs might judge Matilda for doing so. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.

Smoke Kisses Sky Session 3- First Thunder Clap

Last time we left Seo-Yun Matilda she was preparing to head off on the hunt, but she was stopped by the Son's Wife, who bought the alchemical supplies she had pilfered from the cabin along with the encoded recipe book. Both her party of five and the Son't party of five ventured in search of the beast. During that day, Matilda and co. encountered fishermen during the day but decided to press further into the night. In the dark they encountered the Son and the two surviving bandits that journeyed out with him, and everyone headed back and to recover at the Lily of the Waters. 

On the next attempt the day after that, Matilda decided to join forces with the Son, who got two other bandits to join him. One upside is that from the Son's last encounter they had a solid trail to track the monster by. During the day they did not encounter anyone, but the insects were particularly restless, the reeds stung when you moved throught them, and mud sucked in your feet in worlpools, a sure sign that the waters were conspiring to riot against all. Mechanically this meant that everyone crits against everyone. If they pressed into the night, then they were sure to find the beast and it was sure to be a decisve battle one way or another. And press on they did, the marsh in it's agitation let the Beast right to them, stretched out, skin white like corpse wax, and ever so hateful. It started approaching them calmly and was about to say something, then Matilda shot and missed. 

As the Beast screamed and charged at the Gun Shepherd, only the two men present, Bellum and the Son failed thier Morale save, as the Beast ran over and left a horrible gash in Matilda causing her to go unconcious. The Beast then aimed at the Son, but failed and fell into the mud, followed by Dame Vivesector who also missed and fell and started sinking into the marsh under the weight of her armour. The mute Halina, unable to call a retreat went to prevent Vivesector from drowning. Rosemary fired her gun and dropped her gonne. Then one of the bandits, named Gwen blew a massive hole in the monster with a firelance, which was quickly followed up by pikes from two other bandits Laural and Scarlet. 

When Matilda regained conciousness, she was at the bandaged at the Lily. The Beast's corspe was burned already, and the Son took credit for the kill, keeping most of the reward within the Family's coffers, however Matilda and co did get paid, and the Son did commend Matilda's bravery in the face of Beast. While recovering, the Gun Shepherd overheard the Son's Wife talking her husband into killing the Father in a duel but decided not to stick her nose in the buisness becouse she wouldn't mind either of them dying. In the resulting duel the Son died. The Beast has died but more trouble is brewing in Yelenin.

Riot Against All

You're immidate question might be what "waters conspire to riot against all" means. It's from the Char3terie zine which I will link to once it's published. It contains a d6 table which describes the 'mood' of the waters, which changes what actions and magics are favored. I put this table into my modified version of the encounter table. This is the one that altered the course of this session.

• 6: Riot Against All. All results count as critical for all actors. All magics are + but incite water's uproar, probabilities inverted.

In retrospect this should have just turned every successful hit into a critical, but in the moment I read that as replacing the d20 with a coin flip. So Matilda and the Beast went down quickly becouse everyone was doing double damage. So far this has been a very 'rocket-taggy' campaign. Not sure if I want to adjust rules for that, my GMing approach or just pretend this has always been a feature not a bug.

Gradual Accumulation of Characterization

The four bandits who joined the Son on the hunt were undefined, aside from how the two were carrying fire lances and two were carrying pikes. Then during the morale roll, of the named characters only the two guys failed their roll so I decided that this must mean the undefined bandits were women. Then when three of them killed the Beast a three crit alpha strike, I rolled up names for them. I think they were probably the Son's cronies, so will side against the Father in the power struggle next session.

Mechanics of the Hunt

It was kinda fortunate that the Riot Against All came up when it did, becouse I think the tracking rolls might have dragged on otherwise. The issue was that there weren't a lot of novel choices between rolls, and the process of tracking the Beast was elided to a degree where it's just rolling until you get it. I think this might be an issue of me not being as good at description as I would like to be. Also a strange inconsistancy is that the nighttime encounter table is written with the assumption that you're setting up a camp, but the inability to rest in the reeds means there isn't an insentive to do so, becouse you might as well press on. I think this could be fixed by a mention that there is a risk of getting lost at night, even if you have a compass or a local to navigate by. Despite these critiques, I do very much like this adventure, it succeeds at the most important thing an adventure has to do, which is inspire a GM to run it.

Simulationist Woes

I didn't want the player to sell off the encrypted recipe book. It has several cool recipes that I wanted the player to have access to play with. I had the Son's Wife try to buy it becouse it made sense for her character to do so, but didn't expect the player to sell it becouse Matilda couldn't read it right away. I think I should have had the Son's Wife try to steal it in the middle of the night instead.

Forgotten Elements

Bentham and Tuesday have been completely forgotten about, but I don't feel too bad about it. Recently I read Kidnap The Archpriest which includes to focus the adventure around the first couple npcs the players come across, and let the others fade into the background, which I think is a useful mode of play.

I felt I had enough on my plate running the Beast fight that I didn't roll for anyone to get any vices. I think I'll include daemons in encounter tables going forward but I'm not sure how to handle vices going forward.

Spectre of Death

These are the rules for death used, and needless to say Alice chose for Matilda to suffer a Wound. I am currently debating if I want to pick up the action while she's still in recovery and therefor vulnerable or not. I think I had the duel happen somewhere in the middle of the recover week.

What Next

Now I have a bunch of characters for who I need to figure out what thier next actions are going to be. From the adventure I know that the Mother is going to fight the Father, but I need to figure out how the various priests I invented are going to respond and if anything is going to happen with the gnomish cooper friend. I think the Demon Mask is going to carry on the Beast's hatred in it's absence, the problem of the Beast of Yelenin doesn't feel solved. I think it's pretty obvious that it's cursed and horrible revenge killings are going to continue happening around it until nobody is left in the village. I also think I'm going to have the three companions scatter next session, with the option to keep one of them around, so that the one character has more breathing room to exist. The rest will be on the encounter table.

SKS Intermission: Kung Fu Fighting

 So this week I wasn't up to running another session ofr Smoke Kisses Sky, instead we had two kung fu fights dispersed in an evening of hanging out.

FIGHT ONE: FIRST BLOOD

The first fight between Tanya (played by me), the cyborg with a grappling hook prosthetic and Jane Doe (played by Alice), a women with the secret art of behaving as Solider from TF2 happened on Denver Main Street, in it's pedestrian section with the cute little coffee shops and hot topics and such. Then the two warriors lock eyes and Jane Doe says, 

    "Prepare to die, I have killed 50 men in the last hour."
    Tanya looks down with a steely gaze and responds "I have killed 100 men in the last 10 minutes, and you will be next." then swings free her dao.

I forgot to mention that Denver is on fire. Riots, panic, ninjas, robots, ninja-robots with complicated familiar relationships with the previous two, but let's not get into it, this isn't about them.

Jane Doe rocket jumps first swinging her trusty shovel, and what follows is blur of arial combat. Grabs, counter-grabs, hook shots pulling into things, kissing on either the mouth or lips, rocket jumps pushing away, the battle ascends up a lamp post and a tree. At one moment Tanya tries to grab Jane Doe with her hair as long as chain, but she parries with toes like cleavers that deflect the hair in a shower of sparks. Another was Tanya backflipping while holding Jane Doe, ramming her face into the ground. However, Jane Doe was able to reach fast enough to catch the projectile flying towards her, by which I mean earth. Then Tanya sieses the oppertunity and slices Jane to ribbons, who explodes into video game gore and actual literal blood, all over the cyborg.

Satisified with the results, we went and did some other things until I got curious about how the game would feel with d12 kungfu dice.

FIGHT TWO: REMATCH

Years later in Neo-Denver, which again on fire. Atop a skyscrapper lock eyes and Tanya says,

    "Impossible, how are you alive?"
    "I respawned."

Then the immidately went to combat. Tanya attempted to throw Jane off a building, which led into another arial brawl with grabs, kisses, rocket jumps and grapple shots. The details here are a bit murky but Tanya was on the back foot this fight, gets pierced in the forehead with a left pinky as powerful as a spearhead, then trying get away from disasterous cleave kick by grapple hooking to throw of the aim, but this unfortunatly caused her arm to fly off. She hangs here loosely as Jane Doe falls throught the air and flames of Neo-Denver dance on the surface of the glass.

Tanya

• Can become light enough to stand on an egg.
• Warbody:
• Reclining Moon Blade
• Hair as chain
• Lips as cleaver
• Feet as hammers
• Clockwork Lockwork School
• 1.Grappling Hook
• 2. Grappling Hook
• 3. Backflip
• 4. Grab
• 5. Spray
• 6. Kiss on Mouth

Jane Doe

• Reacts quickly enough to catch strikes or projectiles
• Warbody:
• Shovel
• Hammer Legs
• Cleaver Toes
• Spearhead Left Pinky Finger
• School of the Burning Tower Photograph
• 1. Rocket Jump
• 2. Land on Head
• 3. Grab
• 4. Climb
• 5. Take Picture
• 6. Kiss on Lips

Rules We Made Up On The Spot

One was that strikes could be spent to do any technique instead of a strike. This was declared after Jane Doeattempted to use a Strike to kick away Tanya's hair, and that was the only time that came up.

My grappling hook technique went through several revisions through the fight. First I had one "shoot grappling hook" and one "reel grappling hook" technique, which felt kinda wierd so we simplified to two "grappling hook"s. Then that felt two powerful at the skyscraper fight, so I changed that to two "shoot/reel grappling hook"s which didn't have the wierd edge cases of the first.

Jane Doe gained more video game powers as the fight continued.

Closing Thoughts

This was a lot of fun, and achieves the goal of creating dynamic fight scenes. Aside from choosing techniques and trying to come up with schools, it's pretty easy to pick up and play. I'm thinking of writing up some technique lists to keep in my back pocket for when I would want to get people to play some kung fu as a sort of party game.

Smoke Kisses Sky - Session 2 Report: In Which I Vent

Last wednesday I ran the second session of Smoke Kisses Sky and I had a much more difficult time with it. I think it went well enough from the player's end, but I came away from it unsatisfied. Gloomy person that I am I might not have written up this report at all, if not for an encouraging comment on the last post. Therefor I am going to make a post, but a lot of it is going to be complaining about how I ran this session, you have been warned.

The session picked up where we left off, in the basement of the old apothecary, where everyone encountered the oracle Distel. I quickly established that everyone feels a sense of instintual fear, and that this creature can deal damage to max HP, however it's currently non-hostile. Matilda managed to navigate throught a conversation with it without aggravating the shade, learned some rambled clues about what is going on, but the ever unlucky Rosemary recieved an omen that she'd be struck by lightning. Then a huge part of the session was spent grappling with blood vines before they were methodically taken care of with Dame's vorpal shears and some shears found in the cellar. This was a major paint point for me, more on this later. With the blood vines cleared away, an old alchemical lab was uncovered with a corpse in the center of the vines whose dried blood is bright red. I mentioned that Matilda as an alchemist would know that this blood is powerful and she could use the heart as an air reagent, however this would negatively effect her reputation with her followers, so she decided not to desecrate the body. From the alchemical lab they looted several books and unidentified alchemical supplies, most notable a ciphered alchemical recipe book. Then avoiding the room where Distel resides, they went into a boarded up room and found the Sphinx of Black Quarts. Realsing it was magical and powerful but unable to read the description, they headed back to the town, had a nice sauna, listened to the Glazier explain the meaning of sphinxes a little and made plans to hunt the Beast of Yelenin the next morning.

Grappling

I don't like how I ran grappling the blood vines. I attempted to use the g24 grappling rules for this, but ran into the problem that most of the rules do not apply when one of the opponants is a pile of vines spread across the room. This resulted in a lot of opposed Might checks that I don't think were clear in thier exact consequence and not a lot of interaction with the fiction. Which meant that I was very hesitant to inflict segnificant consequences for anything that happened, and it sorta fell flat. The information I gave for running the blood vines turned out to be insufficent. I think I either should have had more of a mechanical backing or taken a more fiction first approach. 

Mental Load

The party has four npc followers and I don't have the bandwith of having them all act in a way that I feel is "in character" becouse that would just devolve in me playing a game with myself while the player sits there and watches as Dame the Vivisector charges into a fight. I think that will need to be changed somewhat. It doesn't help that I consistantly forget various details. Like at the start of the session I said "You have a set of keys from the corpse upstairs, becouse I forgot to say that they were lying on the ground in plain view at the time." Which I think is fine but I feel embarressed about. Also in the middle of the session I had to change Fatigue from "put X to disable a class feature or skill" to "takes an inventory slot" on account of how the companions do not have class features or skills listed, becouse I don't want to track those on top of everything else. I also didn't have the bandwith to do anything intresting with daemons and vices, which I find a bit dissapointing.

Conviction and Experince

At the end of this session, Matilda has leveled up without ever firing her gun, which I think both of us are a little dissapointed by. I think this might largely be my fault for how I glued together adventures. I don't think I like the experince triggers in Hilander's Houserules, at least not in this campaign. I've written about experince triggers before, and I am of the opinon that those mechanics are at thier best where they are used to encourage you to do fun dramatic things. Hilander's experince triggers are mostly sensible, and do not really serve that purpose. The except is the trigger based off of Conviction which has yet to be hit, becouse Alice has not been very mechanically minded about this game. It doesn't feel like it's really serving it's purpose. There is also currently an elephant in the room which is that I don't know how or when I want the npc followers to progress.

Conclusions

I can ramble could bring up countless subjects. However here are some take aways from writing this amount of thoughts out. I think the take away is that I need to prep smarter, so that improvisation doesn't feel bad. I should maybe cut down the amount of things I need to keep track of. Also I need to figure out what kind of game I actually want to run and what kind of game Alice wants to play. Currently she is a pretty quiet player and it'd be unsustainable if the game is mostly me talking at her.

Smokes Kisses Sky - Session 1 Report: Welcome to the Marsh

Yesterday I ran the first session of Smoke Kisses Sky, a duet campaign I’m running for a friend in the physical world. You know who you are please don’t read any further and spoil yourself on what was going on behind the curtain. Let’s call her Alice in this post, which is not her real name buy beats calling her “my friend” or “the player”.

In proper GLOG fashion it’s stitched together from many different pieces, run on Hilander’s House Rules, except with G24 weapons categories. Alice is playing firstGokun’s Gun Shepherd but also knows Low Alchemy. It is set under the Shadow of Glory, but also along the Jabberwocky river (from the hit yet-unreleased community zine the char3terie). Also it uses doggerland vices and daemons.

I wanted to do a narrative retelling of the session and have two drafts of this post where I attempted to do so, but I have kinda given up on that. It was a fun session and a successfully eased both the character and player into an unfamiliar world, but not one that's easy to retell. It involved a lot of exposition that was dynamic as a conversation, but I haven’t found a good way to translate it into text (a better writer might be able to, but not me as I am now). So instead I’m going to talk about what parts of the session I want to talk about.

As a brief overview, the Gun Shepherd Seo-Yun Matilda arrives in a small town of Yelenin that has been besieged by a terrible beast, hitching a ride on a steamboat owned by a hunter to come here to hunt the thing. The first thing she sees is a ritualized duel, during which she talks with a friendly gnome who explains who all the people are and why everyone around here is wearing face paint. The duel concludes in a stalemate, and in the evening she eats dinner at the local tavern/gambling den/temple, where she hears rumors, learns more about who the local important people are and joins forces with other shady characters here to hunt the beast, one of which helps her get her own face paint. Then in the morning she travels through the swamp with her new companions to the abandoned apothecary half a day’s walk out of town. On the way there they encounter a weird person trying to sell them old junk. Arriving at the cabin they do some classic dungeon exploration, one of the companions has her arm possessed, and the weird person threatens and gets its head instantly beheaded. The session ends with a different monster poking out its head through a hole in the wall.

Arrows in your Quiver

In this session I had a specific objective outside just running a good game. That objective was to organically introduce and teach the four customs I outlined in my last post.

The custom I feel that I conveyed the best was Painted Faces, and it was also the one we spent the most time exploring. At one point Alice asked what the face paint of one of the character’s was after I forgot to introduce it when they first appeared, and she commented about how useful it was in post session discussion. Both of which I’m needlessly happy with.

The second best communicated custom was Generosity which I managed to set up as a little mystery. In the tavern I introduced the Father as a petty tyrant who went out his way to serve food to everyone himself. Later when I explained how Generosity works, Alice had an “aha” moment when she understood how the people around here are being extorted.

The Law of Blades was introduced with the duel, but took a back seat. Which I think makes sense because it’s not a custom she immediately needs to understand to meaningfully interact with the setting. It’s something that would become more important the closer you get to domain play and the campaign isn’t there yet.

Sauna Speech was not mentioned at all, and the importance of saunas is only hinted at here and there. I didn’t bring it up at all because Sauna Speech is something that will come up naturally during post-adventure downtime and after Alice has familiarized herself with the characters.

Lesson on Characterisation

The Beast of Yelenin is an adventure with 10 npcs, and I added 4 more on top in my prep to add characters relevant to the setting, plus one more gnomish farmer was invented in play. All of them got introduced, but a few stood out. The two characters who intrigued Alice the most was the Glazier, one of the priests I invented to represent the element of Crystal. He immediately grabbed her attention because he’s a skeleton with cracks repaired with gold like with Kintsugi and was destainful of everyone. The second was Dame the Vivisector who has the cool factor of being a huge knight who talks to her enormous iridescent shears. The thing these two share is that they paint evocative images in your mind. I wasn’t able to find the post but Bad Doctor had written once about describing evocative scenes with specific details. I think I understand how to do that more now. Next session I think I’ll be able to bring a little more sauce to the characters who were bland this session. Which actually includes the marsh, since at the time I was trying to sort out overland travel procedures.

Also I'm fond of the bandit Bellum even thought he hasn't had any particularly noteworthy moments yet. He's ended up just being a friendly and easy going guy.

Poor Rosemary

One of the characters who became more interesting during play was Rosemary, one of the hunters attracted by the bounty, who is also a gun-user and a foreigner. One of the encounters was someone getting possessed, and this threat has been well established beforehand with most npcs commenting to Matilda to get her face painted. So during the exploration of the cabin the dice decided that someone’s arm was going to be possessed by Dogsbody whose vice is Poor Hygiene. At first I was looking over what everyone’s Faces depicted to decide which one Dogsbody liked the most, until I remembered that I completely forgot about Rosemary and how Faceless she is, so she got possessed. There was a moment of tension where Alice wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, then Rosemary started picking her nose. Alice is yet to be told who Dogsbody is or what his deal is, she only knows that Rosemary is possessed. Later when combat starts in the cellar, Rosemary has to fight her arm that is trying to shove expired jam in her mouth. This is all pretty funny and I think firstGokun has nailed it with these rules. They add a good amount of chaos to the proceedings.

Unfortunate Mettie

The cabin is from my Old Apothecary adventure, which I placed outside of Yelenin since it’s an adventure I’ve wanted to run for a bit. Both times she was encountered the dice decided she would show up as a devilishly handsome business man, and I don’t think I liked how I played that out. I am somewhat tempted to replace that option in her shapeshifting table with something else because the encounter of her trying to sell a rusty old kettle turned out kinda weak. Either way the second time she was encountered was when the party was rummaging in the cellar. Mettie came down the stairs and started yelling at the party to leave, and extending her neck and arms unnaturally. Alice’s character Matilda asked if the it is the beast, to which Mettie responded with “Yes!” hoping to scare them. I forgot which one of us realised it first, but we both realised that Dame the Vivisector would immediately attack Mettie because of how giddy she has been about the hunt she has been. So then I spend some time pulling up the rules for combat, we roll initiative, I figure out what everyone’s HP total is, then Dame kills Mettie with a single snicker-snak of her shears. I think I could have played Mettie a bit more intelligently, but it is what it is. Specifically I should have had her attempt to appear in different forms to try and scare away the party on the way to the cabin, and probably had her whisper into Matilda’s ears to leave while invisible instead of walking straight into the arms of a 7ft tall knight.

Guns

There is an interesting consequence from how Alice is playing a Gun Shepherd, which is that I had to change firearms to fit the class’s assumptions. The 5 muskets the Family had were changed to be fire lances, which functioned like the Gun Shepherd’s gun but with one less damage die unable to be reloaded in combat. The Son’s pistol was replaced with a long bow, because I just watched Princess Mononoke where bows are cool. The Son’s Wife’s blunderbuss was replaced with a smoke bomb, because I think that fits her character. Rosemary’s musket went unchanged and she has changed to be a Gun Shepherd herself. Tuesday’s pistols are actually upgraded to modern pistols and are specified to be rare ancient artifacts not reproducible in the modern day. Finally the canon also went unchanged.

You are made of mud, and mud is made of this. (Shadow of Glory Setting Primer)

 A while ago, Hilander, briefly ran a campaign for Sylvanas, theisticgithoniel, PRIMEUMATON and me where we all contributed bits of lore before running. That setting has lived rent free in my head since then, and this post has bits and pieces of their writing throughout it mangled beyond recognition.

The food we eat is a reflection of land we live on. The soil, the climate, the plants and beasts that make their home in a place all inform the character of our cooking. Even when you bring crops and traditions from far away, a bit of local dirt will find its way between our teeth. Sorcery is much the same in this regard, even if sorcerers claim all powers come from the heavens.

In the Southern Deserts where the Sun is omnipresent and the shadows are sharp. All things define themselves in relation to that light. Thus there is no room for magic that is not either with him or against him. Solifugae priests breath in his blessings, fell wizards ensnare the vulnerable in their shadows and mystics shine at night, mirroring the stars in the sky.

In the Silvered City there are a thousand aqueducts and ten thousand mirrors. Water and light are channeled by sophisticated mechanisms. It is the home of mathematics, engineering and the rites of the lock and the key. It is also writhe with art, politics and commerce. Constant voices, countless eyes watching and watching those who watch back. Here the Moon holds at least as much sway as the Sun, appearances may be deceptive but touch a mirror and you will know where the boundaries are.

In Naz-Guradar they do not look to the sky, because it’s so often obscured. When you are surrounded by fog the stars may not guide you, then you must rely on your other senses. Therefore the witches of this land pay attention to what is underfoot. Spirits in the dirt beneath your fingernails, spirits that you can lick off rocks. Perhaps they are the magicians who best understand how magic is like cooking.

To learn a sorcery you must understand its land. To not get consumed by sorcery you must understand the people that live there. Naz-Guradar is warm in the summar, cold in the winter but always, always wet. Moss and lichen coat old statues and chew at the remnants of pigment left behind by the wizard-kings of ages past. Any witch worth her salt will tell you that history lies in the soil, and the soil is made of four things.

Crystal

Rigidity, Strength, Order

It was here first, and for long eons it was eternal. Long before Naz-Guradar, the crystals stood in straight hexagonal columns. Its lowest form is crumbling rock, followed by pliable metal and highest of all, immortal gemstone. On a clear day you might look up and see a shattered glass castle hanging in the sky. Some say the old elves lived there, that they were things of cold immortal beauty, and that this is what killed them.

Your Crystal score is added to Armor Class, Damage, and Saves against poison.

Resource: Pure Crystal

A spellcaster may channel a spell or raw MD through pure crystal to cause a special effect, bargained for with the Referee. (If multiple crystals are used, multiple effects can occur). On a mishap, pure crystals shatter, dealing 1 damage if they were held in your hand.

• Blue - Soften, Weaken, Dissolve
• Pink - Seek, Attach, Cling
• Crimson - Lift, Accelerate, Invigorate
• Salt - Deny, Seal, Reflect

People: Returned

Ancient true humans brought back to life by an unknowable curse. Immune to fatigue and non-spiritual poison. Skeletal.

Custom: Law of Blades (Duel Till Shattering, Sworn Swords)

• Purpose: To keep order.
• Practice: When a worthy someone declares a oath or law, the glaziers are called upon to make a glassblade. The specifics of the decree may still be negotiated while the blade is worked on, but must be settled by the time they finish. The only way to annul this decree is to shatter the glassblade, and the only honorable way to shatter it is in a duel, wielding a glassblade of your own.

Weapon: Glassblade

A fine weapon made of glass, pure crystal and oath. Will tell its law to those who can hear. When the blade is struck, or the wielder dealing a crit, it has a [Damage Dealt]-in-8 chance of shattering.

Stance: Unscratched

Add Crystal to Armour Class a second time when your opponent is targeting your weapon. You are not considered a duelist in Naz-Guradar until you learn it. (Shadow of Glory duelist to come, this Lesson will be available to all styles like Truth is in Carrion Gods, or it might be a general rule. Haven’t decided yet.)

Euphanism: Glass Cutter

Roughly analogous to king maker or grey eminence. Someone who doesn’t have direct power but decides important matters. Glaziers are often suspected to leave flaws in blades, either to further an agenda or because they were bribed.

People: Solifugae

Foreigners from the Southern Deserts, but clearly a kin with Crystal in their blood. Fang-mawed, beady-eyed arachnid people subject to many unsavory rumors. Rather frightening to look at and prone to sudden movements. Their terrible jaws are D6 Melee weapons with Bind (1).

Moss

Life, Chaos, Adaptation

Plentiful rain and gentle winds have turned the land green with it, and the people have adapted. Moss covers anything exposed to the sky and porous enough to hold to. It breaks weak Crystal and makes soil, giving space for new growth. Understanding of this power has reached even the Silver City, where they name it Rot.

Your Moss score is added to Maximum Hit Points, To-Hit and Saves against paralysis.

Resource: Herbs and Lichen.

Many folk, especially gnomes, have discovered useful varieties. Some say that if you find the right herbs one might live forever.

• Bulb-Moss - Grows bulb-ended edible fruit that taste lightly sweet and crunchy.
• Fire Carpet - Causes unbearable itching and stinging. Thin yellow spines.
• Fairy’s Beard - Causes fanciful hallucinations for d6*10 minutes if the spores are breathed in. Long, white, hangs from dead trees.

People: Gnomes

Startlingly diverse, rather populous, genderless on account of being born from soup, all rather short and herptile. Social, +2 to reactions in villages.

People: Tallfolk

Mostly humanoid with pointing ears and smooth skin of almost any hue. Carry +3 Bulk.

People: Shadows

Short humanoids with skin in impossibly dark hues and shining white eyes. Can smell gold and blood.

Custom: Humility (Generosity)

• Purpose: To keep score.
• Practice: To accept food and drink from another means that you acknowledge them as a provider and thus must show them due deference. If you want to be equal to someone who fed you, they must accept food from you in turn. It is considered virtuous for one’s standing among their peers to fluctuate with the seasons.

Title: Chief/Chef

In the local language, these are the same word. A leader is expected to know how to know their way around a kitchen, and a cook generally has some authority.

Cautionary Tale: The Proud Fisherman.

There once was a fisherman who was beloved by the river, and thus never went hungry. He was generous, always providing food to those who the river did not love. In his vanity he forced absurd demands on his peers and insulted them by never accepting offered food. He lived like this until one day the other fisherman forced hemlock down his throat and the river drowned the village.

Craft: Booze

Fine wines and bizarre liquors are treated as equivalent to a meal. Mostly so chiefs can have dinner with their lessers without shaking the balance of power.

Legend: The Sacred Wellesprings

They are found in deep dungeons, and are tended by semi-immortal Moss-Eaters. This name is somewhat ironic, since most people eat moss.

Paint

Passion, Creation, Revelry

Growing and crumbling materials can come together to give rise to things greater than the sum of their parts. It goes beyond images, and includes music, spice, dance and fluttering silks. Laughter, weeping, fury, all the things that bring color to your face. Art was not first wrought in the Silvered City, but here, it’s remembered in the ivy covered murals, and songs passed down through generations. When the paint flakes off or wine is spilled, it gets mixed into the soil. Be wary not to get lost in the feeling, drunk on love and hate.

Your Paint score is added to Reaction rolls of 7 or higher and subtracted on rolls lower than 7, also being normally added to Initiative and Saves against Sleep.

Legend: The Grand Opus

There were seven wizard-kings once, who set aside their differences to make a great piece of art. Each one responsible for a color.

People: Elflings

The atavistic curse of the old Elves, outsiders to both the worlds of spirits and people. Each one’s soul is a spell, but their body is of another race. They can cast their soul as a cantrip if not touching salt.

People: Foxes

Cunning and fiery, these little beasts can transform into something like a Tallfolk, but they always have a Tell.

Custom: Painted Face (Persona, Visage, or simply Face)

• Purpose: To communicate identity.
• Practice: Adults participating in society are expected to put on face paint each morning, and act in accordance with the face they chose. When you paint your face you can communicate three of these five facets. Not wearing a visage is seen as antisocial.
• Primary Emotion - Anger, Joy, Sorrow, Serenity.
• Animal, Mineral or Vegetable - Bear, Sturgeon, Onyx, Flint, Oak, Lotus.
• Social Role - Musician, Wife, Chef, Robber, Prankster.
• Gender - Man, Woman, Neuter, Mage.
• Relationship Status - Married, Celibate, Single and looking, Single and not looking, Single and looking for a fight.

Danger: Possession

Spirits are everywhere in this land, they are faces without heads, breath without lungs. The risk of possession is greater for those whose face is bare, because spirits see it as an empty canvas, and those whose visage matches the spirit’s persona, because of the resemblance. Thankfully, the latter is much rarer.

Tradition: Family Faces

The designs of visages are passed down through generations. Unless someone wishes to distance themselves from their roots, their face will likely contain at least one facet of the clan persona. Both because it’s an important part of one’s identity and because it’s much preferable to be possessed by an ancestor then some forest devil. These are the visages of some of the most storied clans.

• Bright - Glazier, Diamond, Married. When people think of a glass cutter they think of Master Bright. Bright was said to be the first mortal to craft glassblades and thus the Bright clan is tremendously wealthy and influential. Originally a family of shadows, but they have adopted many promising craftsmen over the years.
• Meadsong - Bear, Chef, Drunk[emotion]. Their founding ancestor was said to be a tallfolk of such size that she could eat 30-50 boars and drink 70-80 barrels of mead in one sitting. Nobody went hungry at her table, and nothing happens in Port Ashara without the Meadsongs hearing of it.
• Bellman - Fear, Oak, Warrior. Among the tallfolk there was a man who felled a war god with a resonating hammer throw. From that day he was known as Bellman, and his descendants wear faces with exaggerated eyes and practice their hammer throws to this day. If you ask a Bellman why they wear the marking of fear, they laugh dryly and ask what bravery is.
• Atiok - Excitement, Sword Lily, Woman. The first Atiok was a kindly gnome who loved stories and had a gender which is quite unusual for a gnome. If not for her murals then many tales would be lost in the fog of history. Her descendants are said to have a particularly close connection to Paint to this day.
• Crimson - Rage, Mage[gender], Single and looking for a fight. There is no one alive who carries the blood of this ancient wizard-king in their veins. However their face is still remembered, and it is worn by the bold as a statement and invitation.
• Mist Stalkers - Fox, Grief, Celibate. They do not speak, they are rarely seen, and it might even be right to call them a family. The one thing we know is that they have the secret to traversing the Deep Fog.

Fog

Dullness, Inevitability, Emptiness

Yes it is in the soil here, if that seems nonsensical to you then you have not experienced true Fog. It is something with weight, pressing you down like a heavy blanket. One wades through it like through water, air thick enough that you're forced to take slow steady breaths. Some say that it is older than Crystal, that all things came from it and all things will return to it. It’s not all bad, there is a sort of comfort in having to slow down and consider.

Your Fog score is the amount of Fatigue you recover during a rest, it’s also added to Sneak and Saves against Possession.

Craft: Cloud Bedding

Fog can be captured. People make rather soft pillows and bedding from fog. There’s an elaborate feng shui to keep it from negatively affecting you, but if set up just right, sleep becomes heavenly, restful and dreamless. (+2 to recovery, gotta pay the fog catcher and feng shui specialist. Sabotage-able.)

Danger: Deep Fog

There are places where the fog is especially thick. Stay too long in it unprotected and you will lose memories, fall asleep and never wake up. Fog catchers tend to develop grey hairs and bleached skin on their fingers.

Custom: Sauna Speech

• Purpose: To communicate openly.
• Practice: Around once a week, people go to the sauna to cleanse their bodies and spirit. It is one of the few public places where one is expected not to wear a face, and thus speak freely. In a proper sauna where the steam contains Fog, forms are blurry and indistinct. This gives everything spoken a degree of anonymity and plausible deniability. What is shared in the sauna, stays in the sauna.

Apparel: Sauna Mask.  

A light cloth veil worn when going in and out of the sauna. In Naz-Guradar nobody is worried if you see their bare body, but it’s very embarrassing to show a bare face. On nights when spirits are particularly lively, parents will put them onto their children.

Paradox: The Silent Song

How can something be so light and so heavy? Overflowing yet empty? Do you feel there is something you can’t quite remember?

You may have noticed discrepancies in geography, this is because what I know as the Southern Deserts exists under two different skies. This too can be thought of as a form of Fog.

Glogmas: Argu the Alchemist (Dungeon Merchant)

Crawling through the dungeon you meet a strange dwarf with stone grey skin and unnerving white eyes. He calls himself Argu the Alchemist, but knows nothing of the art. He will trade information for information. Tell him about a monster, plant or danger in the dungeon and he will tell you something equally useful that he knows. However what he is really seeking is corpses, rare plants or strange minerals, for that he will give you his wares. He smells funky.

For each unusual sample he will provide one dose of the following. If it becomes important how much he has stocked he has 2d6 of each item.

• A Wineskin of Ethanol. Well, it looks like a wineskin anyway.
• Lump of Beeswax. Enough for three candles, and much more white than normal.
• A Wineskin of Caffeine. Not coffee, not tea, straight caffeine.
• Immune Booster. As popular in the Barony, except packaged in seamless wax paper.
• A Wineskin of Oil. You can’t tell if it’s plant oil or animal fat.
• Dose of a Psychoactive or Psychedelic. In squishy little balls you're supposed to pop into your mouth.
• Dose of Quick Weakening or Knockout Poison. Do not ask how he gets it and he won’t ask why you need it. Very simple, very discrete.
• Dose of Antidote. For the poisons above specifically.

For each unique sample he will provide the following. If it becomes important how much he has stocked he has 1d6 of each item.

• A dose of Curative, or three doses of either Prophylactics or Pain Killers. Again, like they do it in the Barony except for the packaging.
• Dose of Quick or Slow Lethal Poison. Very simple, very discreet.
• Dose of Antidote. For the poisons above specifically.
• Bolt of Spider Silk. A very fine textile.
• Wineskin of Delicious Syrup, Slugslick Grease or Wedweb Glue. Function as the alchemical formula with Reagent power of one. Argu insists that he knows how thier made.
• Wineskin of Healing. Restores d6 HP when drunk.
• A combination of ten of the unusual options.

For each one of a kind sample he will provide the following. If it becomes important how much he has stocked he has 1d3 of each item.

• Wineskin of Great Petard. As the alchemical formula, with a Reagent power of five. None of these are really wineskins, but you're not sure what else to call them.
• Dose of Perfect Antidote. Give him a sample of a poison 10 minutes unobserved and he will return haggard and holding a small grain that will cure that poison when swallowed. Physically he’s only capable of doing this once every 24 hours.
• Dose of Quick Lethal Poison. I am sure we understand each other.
• Dose of Antidote. For the poison above specifically.
• A combination of ten of the unique options.

When you show Argu a one of a kind sample, his eyes will go wide and it will become clear that he would do anything to acquire it. If you reject his initial offer, make a reaction roll. On a positive result, he’ll throw in another item, on a negative result he turns to threats or violence. Speaking of which.

Argu is a Derro half-folk bloom with all that entails. “He” has stats as an 4 HD dwarf in medium armour, with a billhook and a large amount of fungal “wood” throwing darts “he” can poison at a moment’s notice. By nature Argu is not a violent (fun)guy, so if violence breaks out, this Derro prefers to make distance, poison a target and renter negotiations offering the antidote. Will use syrup, grease or glue to make a quick escape if he’s overwhelmed or a Petard if things are really desperate.


Merry Glogmas to Ember from the Creature Cavern! I don’t know how much adapting Argu would need to be fit into your setting, but I think I might use the guy sometime myself. Only difference is I'd make him a soupborn, which are in a lot of ways similar to your half-folk. Also, I think I may have done a little too much crosslinking in this post. Also I know that following the logic of the post, the wierdness of Argu's wares shouldn't be this obvious, but rpgs aren't a medium in which handle subtly well and the overuse of "wineskin" is funny.